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points by poisonborz 3 days ago | 0 comments

Apples and oranges. Hot take: fine details in an artwork are extremely important. "Fine details" in a codebase are either some pattern you can easily instruct an agent to follow, or deliver zero value.

[–] theptip 2 days ago

Missing the point. Which is, some people like the details, code as craft; others like the high level, product/business impact, systems, etc, code as a means to an end.

The profession used to have a need for both, now the “coding machine” and artisanal code crafter are trending obsolete in most companies.

[–] poisonborz 2 days ago

I think I reacted exactly to this. What is "code as craft", or as often read, "code is poetry"? It is variable naming, structure, hierarchy, import logic, all patterns that can be strictly controlled still. Opinions vary if this still carries enough value - I like these details, exactly because I value the "craft" and the expectancy of human oversight these presume, but I could argue about it to some manager less and less (compared to what frontier models generate already).

So when all this can still be kept, "hand craft", the muscle memory of typing code, or, as OP said,"dev who liked more the micro parts", what is this other than some nice myth the industry wove for itself?

[–] theptip 1 day ago

Perhaps the crux is: what is “value”?

If we mean dollar value then yes, hand crafted code may go to zero as nobody wants to pay a 10x premium for it.

If we mean (as I did) the subjective value to the creator themself, then there is no reason this has to stop. It will just make the same shift as farming to gardening.

You shouldn’t expect to get paid for this, or do it on your employer’s time, but you are absolutely free to do it in your leisure time, and perhaps just like Go and Chess, AI will make these pursuits more accessible than ever, to those who are interested in learning for fun.